I adore apples, love apples so much. My family owns property that dates back to the late twenties (at least our house is) and used to be almost four acres of land and something of a small farm as when my parents moved in, it had a bevy of VERY old apple trees, something of a home orchard. They were so old and diseased due to cedar apple rust that as the years went by they all died in my lifetime except one which is now on our neighbors property and is grown as a large standard. Ours were generally smaller and the fruit was mostly green, but a few trees on the property did produce some sizable apples and they were okay to eat, not great, but not too bad either. I want to think they might have been some sort of cider or crab apple hybrid. Most of those trees have fallen down and we've used them for firewood, apple wood really is the best wood to burn, it smells so good!

Anyway, I've been wondering what antique or vintage apple varieties do rather well here in the Mid-Atlantic region and aren't as disease prone as others? My main concern is that we have about three very mature cedars on our property that we in no way can dispose of. I'm wanting to do some semi-dwarfs and have been trying to figure out what might be the best investment instead of a fruit that's popular but on a tree that's hard to handle. I'm not above spraying Bordeaux spray among others, but in general a lower care tree would probably be better...

I love apples like winesap, empire, rock hard very crunchy, slightly tanic apples that are fun to eat out of hand but also could be used for baking/store well. I've been eyeing Arkansas Black possibly? How does that do well here? Any other suggestions you can think of?

It would be fun if you tried mini-trees of lots of kinds and did your own grafting. I know that is asking alot of some folks though!

Apples graft very easily.

You could trial a hundred foot row of apples on m-27 rootstock and have them planted every 3 or 4 feet. Like a hedge. That way you would get some idea of what all tastes good and finishes on time for you in your climate.

I live in south-central PA. Take a look at the apples in my collection. All are growing well even though Calville Blanc seems to be prone to rust. I spray with Bordeaux mixture which keeps rust at bay.

Baldwin, Roxbury Russet, and Winesap are usually considered to have good resistance to CAR, and Bramley and Ashmead's Kernel are fairly resistant. I wonder if it is a co-incidence that all are triploid varieties?

Liberty is one of the best modern disease-resistant varieties that holds up well against CAR. Interestingly there is some evidence it might also be triploid! There's also Priscilla, one of the new-ish varieties developed by the PRI cooperative, and resistant to almost everything.

Note that if you plant any of the triploid varieties you are going to need some pollinators (since they will not cross-pollinate each other). Akane or Grimes Golden or Honeycrisp might work, and have a bit of resistance to CAR.